Freeman, Johnson complete lap of honour

Freeman, Johnson complete lap of honour
Martin Parry

Sydney, September 25: Since she was a child, Cathy Freeman has had a dream - to be the best athlete in the world. From a young age in Mackay, Queensland, she was encouraged by her mother Cecilia to write a message to herself, a guiding Principle for life. The note read: "I am the world's greatest athlete."

She was born to run and in Sydney the 27-year-old Freeman, has achieved that goal, but in the process has taken on another mantle just as weighty - she has become the most significant symbol of ethnic reconciliation in Australia.

Freeman, already a heroine in her native country, became a worldwide celebrity when she lit the Olympic cauldron at the opening ceremony for the Sydney Games in front of 110,000 people in Stadium Australia and an estimated 3.7 billion television viewers around the world. As a two-time 400 metres world champion and Atlanta Olympic silver medallist, Freeman's performances on the track alone warrant attention. But Freeman has shown herself to be a young woman who overcame adversity to become an inspiration for an entire people.

She is prepared to talk about her anger at the way her people have been treated and reveal the darker secrets of her past. In her biography, A Journey Just Begun, Freeman revealed how she was molested as a child, and spoke of the tragic deaths of her sister, who suffered from cerebral palsy, and her alcoholic father. It's a heavy burden to carry but the champion athlete is at ease with the responsibility of being a figurehead and has made it clear she wants to become an activist for indigenous rights when her track career is over.

But before a move into politics, Freeman, now based in Melbourne, desperately wanted a Sydney gold medal. "I think it's really important to be doing it for myself and then I guess for my family and friends and then for my indigenous community and of course for my country Australia," she said.

And Freeman became firm favourite when two-time defending champion Marie-Jose Perec of France stunned everyone last week by fleeing the Australian city and returning to Paris - claiming she had been harrassed by the press.